There’s nothing more fun than late, dramatic homers when they go your team’s way. The Bucs got two of them Tuesday night, and won their second in a row against the Cards as a result.

Jeff Karstens had a pretty shaky game, going just 5.1 innings and allowing three runs. The Cards put one on the board with a couple of hits in the second, but Andrew McCutchen erased turned the one-run deficit into a two run lead with one swing of the bat in the third. Two 3-run homers in two nights for the Bucs! Holy cow!

St. Louis tied it up, though, with two in the sixth. Albert Pujols hit his league leading 30th bomb (his 873rd at PNC Park), and a walk to Lance Berkman followed by a double by David Freese knotted it up at three. Jason Grilli came on and did a nice job avoiding further damange.

After McCutchen’s blast, Chris Carpenter settled in very well and allowed nothing more for the rest of his seven innings, racking up 10 K’s on the way. Grilli and Jose Veras kept things clean, and the game went to the ninth still tied.

Joel Hanrahan came on to pitch, which is certainly the correct move. It didn’t work out so well tonight, though, as Hanny allowed a leadoff double…which St. Louis was able to turn into the go-ahead run with two productive outs. Major bummer, and the Bucs were down a run with three outs left.

Neil Walker didn’t waste any time changing that. On the first pitch of the inning, he blasted a homer to right center to tie things up. Walker’s looked SO much better at the plate these last two games, and he couldn’t have found a better time to put one out.

The Bucs got a man to 2nd later in the 9th, and again in the 10th, but couldn’t score. Chris Resop tossed two solid scoreless frames, the last of which came thanks to a MAJOR assist by McCutchen in center. Pujols drilled a fastball towards the notch with a man on first, but Cutch ran about a mile in about three seconds to somehow track it down (without even leaving his feet) and save a run. Just an absolutely remarkable display of speed. It probably won’t even be highlight reel worthy since he didn’t dive or anything, but I highly doubt any other CF in baseball makes that catch.

And to lead off the bottom of the 11th, Garrett Jones got a baseball wet to end it. BOOM. Awesome.

Also, check out this fan behind home plate on the walk-off. Great stuff.

Notes:

Pretty incredible that the game went to extra innings with good old Jerry Meals behind home plate. Nothing controversial happened (although Hurdle was seen barking at him after a close non-strike call late in the game), but how ironic would it have been if there was a close play at the plate and a Bucs walkoff win?

I did have to laugh at a Tweet immediately after the game ended, saying #JerryMealsSaysItsFoul

With these wins, the Pirates are unfortunately helping out the Brewers. Milwaukee won again and now holds a 7 game lead over the Cards (the Bucs remain 13 out).

Jose Tabata was 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout in his return to the lineup.